Holy Ghost, the Spirit, ever waits to attend it to the hearts and consciences of those who hear it. More than the yearning bowels of a mother's sympathy for her sick child, is realized, methinks, by the Holy Spirit. O then, tell me, how must the good Spirit be grieved, when, instead of taking the wholesome prescriptions of the Gospel, we put it from us, and take poison in its place. When, instead of receiving the Lord Jesus Christ by faith as our only Saviour, we reject him, and seek to drown all serious thought in gay company and dissipating amusements; as the ball, the circus, the theatre; from any of which places I defy you to bring away a mind as well prepared to worship God, as you carried there.

When it pleases the Lord to lay his hand upon us to afflict us, either by the loss of friends, property, or health, and we refuse to see the hand that smites us, and to break off our sins by righteousness, that we may turn to God as our chief joy; then must the Holy Spirit be grieved with our incorrigible and irreclaimable obstinacy.

When we, as professors of religion, begin to relax in the discharge of our duty, and content ourselves with the accommodating spirit of semi-Christianity, then is the Spirit grieved, and it flies us, with this serious interrogatory, "Have ye suffered so many things in vain? Are ye so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, as to end in the flesh ?"

In a word, there are ten thousand little yieldings to sin, and stiflings of the Divine Spirit, which we cannot describe or name, in which we grieve or weaken the influence of the Holy Spirit.

178 HARRIS'S SERMONS ON IMPORTANT SUBJECTS.

From what has been said, it appears that the divine Spirit is in the world, working on the minds of men to turn them from the power of darkness to God. How extensive his operations! It further appears, that his aid is really required, to enable us to accomplish the enterprize of salvation. How great should be our gratitude for his aid, and how serious are the consequences of obstinately rejecting it! When our judgment tells us the necessity of religion, and the Spirit no longer aids us, how serious is our condition! Let us close with its next offers!

SERMON XVIII.

For

ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Rom. viii. 15.

but

ye

THIS chapter opens with a reviving view of the privilege of every Christian believer, which is heightened by the view of its contrast; that is, the state of an awakened soul, (described in the former chapter) whose only resource is in an infinite and violated law.

There we hear the awakened sinner, with almost despairing anxiety, inquire, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death." But having received absolution, or being renewed by the Gospel energy, he breaks forth in the commencement of this chapter in this wise: "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Having introduced these two characters to represent the two dispensations, the apostle proceeds to enumerate and

urge the strong obligations imposed on us Christians by the reign of grace, which he denominates, "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which makes the justified man free from the law of sin and death.

Such being the effects of the gracious assistance promised in the Gospel, no person under the new covenant is irresistibly forced, either by the corruption of his nature, or by outward temptation, to live according to the flesh. And, therefore, God has justly decreed, that all who live according to the flesh shall eternally die. "Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to live after the flesh-For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die."

Further, to correct the error of the Jews, who contended that no Gentile could obtain eternal life who did not obey the law of Moses, and to comfort the believing Gentiles, whom the Jews thus excluded from the mercy of God; the apostle declares, that, according to the tenor of the new covenant, all who are led by the Spirit of God to mortify the deeds of the body, are the sons of God, whether they be Jews or Gentiles. And then, to define the genius of the new covenant, and to show the excellent disposition of the sons of God, whether they be Jews or Gentiles; he declares, that they did not obey God from that slavish fear of punishment which was bred in the minds of the Jews by the curse of the law, but from the filial disposition of love and gratitude to their Father. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." The sense of

these words may be included in the observation, that the temper to which we are led by Christianity, is not such a servile spirit as prevailed under the law. In the consideration of this truth, I shall show,

I. In what sense it is made the character of those under the law, to have received the spirit of bondage; and of those under the Gospel, to have received the spirit of adoption.

II. How the Old Testament dispensation contributed to a servile spirit; and how, on the contrary, the Gospel leads to a filial temper; and,

III. How, therefore, our deliverance from the one, and our participation of the other, should influence

us.

I. And, first, we are to show, in what sense it is made the character of those under the law, to have received the spirit of bondage; and of those under the Gospel, to have received the spirit of adoption. Let us define these two words, bondage and adoption.

The common acceptation of the word bondage, is captivity, confinement, or servitude. But in a theological sense, as in the text, it means a state of misery through fear of death. This was felt by those Jews who lived by a rule or law, which was encumbered by many rites and ceremonies; a law, by the breach of which, the Jew must be subject to bon